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Being the prettiest girl in the room isn’t necessarily an easy job - if you’re a fruit fly. The most attractive female members of the species Drosophila melanogaster may actually suffer as a result of their physical appearance and may have more trouble reproducing than their homelier counterparts. This information appears in the December 8 issue of Public Library of Science Biology, in an article authored by UCSB biology professor William Rice, post-doctoral grad student Tristan Long, PhD student Alison Pischedda and post-doctoral researcher Andrew Stewart.

George Foulsham, Office of Public Affairs, UCSB

William Rice

Rice and Long examined the mating habits of the fruit fly. For males, this behavior entails “singing” and “dancing” by vibrating their wings together. As Rice explained in a press statement from UCSB, “They dance and sing at the same time. This might sound romantic, and it would be if it only happened once. But males are doing it all the time: The males are so persistent that they get them to mate almost every day.” And it doesn’t stop there. “With fruit flies, the males transfer a whole cocktail of proteins and byproducts in their ejaculate,” said Long, who explained that this toxic fluid can ultimately harm a female’s ability to reproduce offspring.

Therein lies the plight of the fruit fly knockout. Though she may possess good genes - specifically, ones that make her large and therefore more appealing to male fruit flies - she may not get as much opportunity to pass on those genes for the benefit of the fruit fly community. Long offered a hypothetical scenario to explain the implications of the study: “If the environment gets drier and a new [genetic] mutation appears which gives a female fruit fly a competitive advantage - to get more resources, or to be better able to withstand the harsher conditions of the environment - natural selection should let that gene spread: because the individuals who carry it are of undeniable advantage. But if you [also] end up being more attractive, those females would suffer and be at a disadvantage. And that might mean that populations would be less able to adapt to changing conditions.”

Long noted that although this sort of behavior didn’t necessarily portend anything about the mating behaviors of humans, it has been observed in other animal species. Sexually attractive female orangutans, for example, will be chased and harmed by males, and the female members of species like guppies will often swim to areas that have higher rates of predation to escape the harassment of their suitors.

Buy 'em books, send them to school and this is what we get...our stimulus dollars at work:

Half a million dollars went to Arizona State University to study the genetic makeup of ants to determine distinctive roles in ant colonies; $450,000 went to the University of Arizona to study the division of labor in ant colonies.

The State University of New York at Buffalo won $390,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana. The National Institutes of Health got $219,000 in funds to study whether female college students are more likely to "hook up" after drinking alcohol.

The University of Hawaii collected $210,000 to study the learning patterns of honeybees, and $700,000 went to help crab fishermen in Oregon recover lost crab pots.

Well, at least they get to put initials around their names to let us know how brilliant and productive they are...

To "sa1", Perhaps you'd prefer the days when humans lived in caves? Or a time in our history before we knew the earth was round or had an explanation for gravity? University research has led to an incalculable number of discoveries in the pursuit of new knowledge.... Knowledge about our world and its inhabitants.

Though you mock research, you have benefited from it greatly. As a taxpayer, I am more than happy to have my tax dollars go toward new discoveries. And I would much rather be spending my money in these ways, than to be building bombs and killing people.

And in case there is any confusion, research conducted at research universities is funded through research grants, not from state money which is allocated for instruction.

Many still live in caves thanks to the hoarding of resources by the privledged strata of human societies. I doubt though that grant money was behind the invention of fire and the wheel.

More to the point is the discrimination that is allowed in the work place as to payscales and job opportunity for those who chose not to waste time and money on useless degrees in fanciful disciplines.

It is a fact the the US is falling behind in the hard sciences that drive our economy and the evidence is all around us. Though not as egregious as state and federal employees, the university tenure system and payscales are enabling of sub par performance in a way that is really comming home to roost.

I think it is mock worthy that so much money is paid out (wasted) for these irrelevant and dubious "studies" that do little to nothing to advance the human condition. It is down right unethical to keep stealing from our shrinking pool to fund useless research to fulfill the publish or perish requirement of the Ivory Tower...

How about spending that grant money to fix basic education so we don't have a 40% failure rate in high schools?

Gotta call you out...Now that you've made your position on scientific research and researchers quite public, however informed or ignorant it might be, the SB-Indy community is curious about YOUR profession. Could you please enlighten us as to how you make your living, and what exactly is YOUR contribution to "advance the human condition"?